Emergency personnel performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation and took them to Yale-New Haven Hospital where doctors tried to restore blood pressure and warm their blood.

Entering the operating rooms the body temperature of the children was about 60 degrees, a hospital spokesperson said. With the help of life-support systems, Dr. Madeline Wilson said, both children regained heart rates and pulses.

"It is a critical time," Wilson said. "They have pulses now -- the goal will be to get them off the machines. ... Then we have to see if they wake up. ... The machinery is doing everything for them right now."

"The critical question is how long they were in the water," said Wilson, who noted the two could have been submerged from 30 to 60 minutes.

The children were later transferred to the pediatric intensive-care unit where they were in critical but stable condition and breathing with the assistance of a respirator. Doctors called it a "day-by-day situation."

Police and fire officials were unsure how the accident occurred or how long the children had been missing before they were found. Clinton Police Chief Joseph Faughnan said his department was investigating.

The mother of the children, Diana Raffuse, Onofrio and a baby sitter were at the Raffuse home when the children disappeared, Neff

said. The trailer, in the Evergreen Trailer Park is only yards away from the river's edge.

Around 5 p.m., Raffuse and Onofrio contacted Andrew Ellison -- a neighbor -- to ask if he had seen the children. Ellison immediately became concerned because of the proximity of the water and looked down the embankment to see one of the children in the water, which is about 5 feet deep, Neff said.

Onofrio and Ellison jumped into the water to pull the children out, police said. The children were then taken into Ellison's home and paramedics arrived minutes later.

"He was soaked up to his neck," Faughnan said about Onofrio.

Footprints on the snow-covered ice showed that the children may have been playing on the river for a while before they wandered to the other side where the ice was an inch thick or less. Parts of the water were not fully frozen over and a bright pink glove, belonging to one of the children could be seen floating in the water. Police said Raffuse has a third child, who is 2 years old, but that child was in the home with the mother when the incident occurred. Police did not know why a baby sitter was present while the mother was home and planned to question anyone who might have information about the incident. Catherine Zaorski, a hospital official, said the hospital was alerted about 5 p.m. that two children were being transported to the emergency room.

Zaorski said family members arrived just about the same time as the children, who were transported in two seperate ambulances.

The children's mother huddled with about a dozen family and friends in a ground-floor family room. First Selectman Paul W. Austin said the community was praying for the children and their family.

"There's not much that you can say when a tragedy like this happens," he said. "The only thing that's pleasing in this is how quickly the police and fire department were there. We'll just keep praying for them."

Dawn Dupre, a neighbor, was shocked to hear about the children. Tears welled to her eyes as she stood near her own 5-year-old son and asked if the children were okay.

Dupre, however, said she was not concerned about something similar happening to her son.

"He would never think of going near it," she said. "He's had experiences near water to know it's scary. We've always stressed that."